


of all

by Imatableclock



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Apocalypse, BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Bad Parenting, Children, Death, Depressed Merlin (Merlin), End of the World, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness, M/M, Mindfuck, Numbness, Outer Space, Protective Arthur, Protective Gwaine (Merlin), Sad Merlin (Merlin), Time Loop, black holes, eternally shocked merlin, god merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 11:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imatableclock/pseuds/Imatableclock
Summary: He wonders whether he’s like the dead, already buried by the weight of the years. He wonders whether he’s the sand, cold and drowning on itself. The lakes have evaporated, and he belatedly thinks that everyone had lied to him. He doesn’t mind; he doesn’t mind anything anymore.In which the world ends, but Merlin doesn't.





	of all

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been rereading a lot of fics, and the idea of merging the lot of them into one seems so appealing. I couldn't resist this ball of angst, which includes a lot of AUs and space. Dig in!

He watches the king sail away wearing the bloodied armour he had put on his cold, dead body.

He goes home, and eats what Gaius says was his favourite food. He realises that most of his friends are dead, too, and those who are alive shun him in shock and grief. That’s when he realises, he loved a dead man.

He packs his belongings and leaves.

* * *

He remembers what things were like (millenia, eons ago) and sees what things are. The world is ending. The man next to him tries to bludgeon him to death out of suspicion.

* * *

He watches as the empty earth grows emptier. As the shells of previous life refuse to disintegrate (no life left to do that), they get buried in sheets of sand.

He wonders whether he’s like them, already buried by the weight of the years. He wonders whether he’s the sand, cold and drowning on itself. The lakes have evaporated, and he belatedly thinks that everyone had lied to him. He doesn’t mind; he doesn’t mind anything anymore.

* * *

He watches as the world ends again. He realises that life had just begun to grow again when Earth is blown to smithereens, as only the day (week? Year?) before the hem of his sleeves had been eaten in where the bloodstains were.

* * *

He floats in empty space, then, something people had dreamed of. He thinks that he does that very often, all things considered, and distantly notices that he finds it strange that people existed at all. He wondered whether he was lonely and realised that loneliness didn’t count when you were immortal. It was just another entry on the long, long list of things he has been.

Over here, he can watch time as it passes. It’s tragic that he’s the only one who got to see that; he can’t even appreciate it. He’s seen it pass by all his life. 

* * *

He watches as galaxies collide, as nebulae spread so far, they consolidate into entirely different things. He watches black holes swallow all that is near as all that is farther flies out of horizon. He watches as one takes him in and spews him back out.

He misses humanity. At least, they had curiosity. He just watches.

* * *

He watches as the accretion discs slow down, watches as the whole universe becomes one cosmic soup of energy, where he can’t feel the limbs he hadn’t used in years (centuries, millenia; he doesn’t remember). The world is ending. He hopes (doesn’t pray, they’re all gone) that time ends with it, as it is supposed to. 

* * *

It doesn’t. Instead, time happens all at once.

He finds himself lying in the firelight on a bedroll. He hears the quiet grazing of horses, sees a prince’s crown beside him. He watches as a hand adorned in the firelight with all its edges, without the familiar sag of the years, reaches out to touch his face. He looks at Arthur’s face, warm and open and soft in the firelight, who watches him with an intensity of passion he never got to see directed at him. He watches as his eyes meet his, so intense they shine.

“My beloved,” Arthur says, running the edges of his fingers along the curve of his cheekbone, “It’s been so long.”

* * *

He stares at the lake as it shimmers grey. The wind whooshes in his ears, and he looks down to see himself dressed in jeans. His hands are wrapped around a sword. _Excaliber,_ he realises. Deep, deep inside he sees a reflection. He jumps inside, and it spews him back out. Leon takes the sword from his hands and holds him as he weeps.

* * *

He sees bright lights as they filter through the tinted glass and smells the alcohol beneath his nose. He can hear the honking of the cars and screeching of tyres and the din of so many conversations happening all at once. He realises he hadn’t heard anything for ages, but then a knee knocks against his under the table. He sees Arthur in a hoodie, beaming drunkenly at him as he tries to stand. Merlin helps him up.

* * *

Gwaine looks at him and brushes his long hair aside. He lies in a cot, in his old (very old) room, shirtless and grinning. He smells a brewing sleeping draught from under the closed door. Gwaine takes his hand and beckons him towards the bed. His breath smells of mead, and his eyes are red-rimmed. Merlin sees the powdered circle forming a spell for detection of wraiths from the light coming from under the door.

“He didn’t deserve you,” he whispers in his ear, his other hand travelling down his body, “None of us do.”

* * *

Grass tickles at his neck. He opens his eyes and sees the sky, hears the chirping of birds. The breeze makes the trees move softly. He is in the open, grassy clearing where he used to meet Kilgharrah. He closes his eyes as his head pounds and struggles to sit up. Only when he hears the clinking of glass that he realises that he clutched an empty bottle of hemlock in his hand. He calls out but his voice is too hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours.

* * *

The refrigerator hums as it works, the only sound he can hear. The light seems dingy even though he keeps his rooms clean and sterile. A scruffy-looking man barges through the slightly open door, his hair in disarray and his eyes bloodshot. His hands are shaking, and he looks incredulously at Merlin.

“I’m your son,” the man says, “Why do you look like you are mine?”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Merlin says elusively, and holds the man he’d never seen in his life as he sobs into his arms.

* * *

He hears the creaking of a door as he wakes up, shirtless on the floor of a hut. He can see the dawn break through the small window by the sacks of grain. He runs his hands along the hard lines on his arms, depicting a lifetime on the fields. He notices that there is no burn scar on his chest as he pulls his tunic on, which was lying next to him on the floor along with his mother’s boots.

“Merlin,” Hunith called, her voice sounding hoarse with age, “Enchant Albert’s trapdoor before Kanen’s men come!”

* * *

Big brown eyes look into his as he holds Gwen rocking a baby. Gwen smiles softly at him. They’re in a hut he doesn’t remember; it isn’t hers. He notices that the baby has raven, curly hair, and its eyes are glowing. He finds a band on the ring finger of Gwen’s left hand which is too simple to be Arthur’s. Gwen simply kisses his cheek.

“He’s so beautiful, isn’t he?” She says fondly, snuggling a bit into his embrace, “Just like you."

* * *

Arthur is looking at him and crying, tears emerging like they were painful to withhold. He was shaking his shoulders, and Merlin couldn’t lift his head because it seemed stuffed with cotton. Arthur buried him in his chest and sobbed in great heaves, a keening sound emerging deep in his body.

“Idiot,” Arthur says, his voice hoarse and shaky. “All I asked of you was to stay by my side.”

* * *

They happen for an instant or for an eternity. He doesn’t know the difference between them anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> :)


End file.
